1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to an electrical connector having a retention system for facilitating mounting of the electrical connector on a printed circuit board.
2. Description of Related Art
It is well known to provide an electrical connector mountable to a printed circuit board (hereinafter PCB), in which the connector has terminals electrically engaging with respective electrical circuit traces on the PCB. The terminals may have solder tails projecting from the connector and inserted into holes in the PCB, or leg portions extending generally parallel to the PCB for surface mounting to circuit traces on the PCB. Such a connector has a problem that the electrical connections between the terminals and the circuit traces of the PCB often are subjected to external stresses, which sometimes will cause the connections to break. To resolve this problem, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,622,519, 5,217,381, 5,230,633, 5,178,557 and 4,679,883, disclose the use of board locks and posts to retain the connectors to the printed circuit boards.
However, with the ever-increasing miniaturization of electronic circuit, along with the consequent reduction in sizes of the connector and terminals, the board locks often are impractical and neither cost nor space effective.
Regarding the posts, which extend vertically from the dielectric housing of the electrical connector for insertion into the printed circuit board, the posts result in a difficulty in molding the housing. Because the housing has generally a mating port extending along a horizontal direction, a mold open direction of the mold for forming the housing is in a horizontal direction. To form the vertically extending posts, slide structure is necessary in the mold. The slide structure increases the cost and operating complication of the mold. Furthermore, for a board edge mounting electrical connector, a mating/unmating force of the connector will cause the connector to rotate, whereby the connections of the tails of the connector and the PCB are insecure. Hence, an improvement to resolve the problems of the prior art is required. The copending application Ser. No. 09/938,442 filed on Aug. 23, 2001, with the same inventor and the same assignee discloses some approach.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide an electrical connector for facilitating mounting of the electrical connector onto a PCB.
In order to achieve the object set forth, an electrical connector comprises an insulative housing adapted for being mounted to an edge of a printed circuit board, and a plurality of contacts secured to the housing. The housing has an elongated body portion. A mating portion projects forwardly from the body portion adapted for engaging with a complementary connector and defines a plurality of recesses therein. A pair of guide portions is positioned on both ends of the body portion. A back portion extends rearwardly from the body portion. A post projects downwardly from each of the guide portions for extending through holes defined in the printed circuit board. A pole projects downwardly from the back portion for retentively engaging in a hole of the printed circuit board. The insulative housing defines apertures at locations corresponding to positions of the posts and pole, respectively. The apertures are located in front of and in line with the posts and pole, respectively. Each aperture has a size larger than a corresponding post or pole.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.